Hi. I must disapoint you. There is no fastest way to learn any language and especially to avoid misunderstanding. Even if you learn Russian you will face cultural misunderstandings inevitably. But i dont' want to demotivate you:) At least you can prepare yourself by learning Russian grammar a bit and some spoken topics, after that you can try to listen to russian speech in videos and of course you'll definitely understand nothing :) but you'll be training your hearing which will be really helpful. i'd even say first of all you need to train you hearing if you want to avoid awkward situations at least a bit. i wish you good luck and don't worry beacuse we learn making mistakes:)

Hi. Everyone in Ukrain speaks Russian, but not every Russian speaks Ukrain. Ukrain people and goverment hates and bans Russian as main language in their country. So If you are going to study in Kyiv why do you need learn Russian? I'd better learn Ukrain.